


The Old Guard

by WriteInTheHeart



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 01:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteInTheHeart/pseuds/WriteInTheHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil found the tomb of the "Mad Pharaoh" Ahkmenrah when he was 12 years old. Over his lifetime, he never lost his fascination with that Tablet, nor the words that one of the locals at the dig site said to him: "If you remove the Tablet, the end will come." This is the story of the old guards, and how they went from curious children to bitter, selfish old men hellbent on stealing the Tablet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Guard

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Sunny, for reading it over! :)

_New York City, 1936_

There was just… _something_ about that tablet.

Ever since Cecil had come back from the “Mad Pharaoh” Ahkmenrah expedition, he couldn’t think of anything else besides the tablet. He’d been so angry at his father when he saw that he’d chipped a few corners off the tablet. It was so beautiful on the wall of the tomb, practically glowing despite there being no way for much light to get inside. Cecil turned over on his bed and stared at the ceiling. It felt so dull compared to looking up at the sharp, curving insides of a canvas tent, the sun filtering in through a small rip or the entrance flaps. Back here in the city, it all felt so stale and smelled so rotten.

He sighed and dragged himself up until he was seated against his creaky headboard. He leaned over and fished a thick photo album out from under his bed—the only evidence he was allowed to keep of the whole thing. The only proof that he had been there and found the lost pharaoh. He smiled a little. _He_ had found the tomb. His backside had smarted for a few days afterwards, but oh man, had it been more than worth it. Cecil flipped through the album to the photo of him, his dad, and their British partner. They all beamed up from the page, surrounded by some of the volunteers they’d rounded up in Egypt. It’d been taken a day after they found the tomb, since the sandstorm had forced them to leave quickly, but like hell was his father going to leave Egypt before getting one final photo op in.

He was about to flip away from the page when he noticed something in the background. One of the volunteers… _the_ volunteer, the one who’d shoved him against the wall of the tomb and screamed at him. He hovered in the back, eyeing them all warily.

“If you remove the Tablet, the end will come.”

Cecil shivered violently just remembering those words. He’d heard of curses hanging around the old tombs, but they usually were about killing the ones who disturbed the dead, not about bringing about “the end.”

“Hmph. What did they know, anyway?” he said to himself. “Lots of people have predicted the end of the world, and we’re still here.”

“What’s going on now?” Cecil’s father poked his head in his room, yawning and drying his hair with a towel. He looked at the album on his son’s lap and chuckled. He sat down on the bed. “Still not over it I see.”

“How could I be, Dad! I found Ahkmenrah’s tomb!”

“I know!” His father shook his head. “I look for it for years, get the British Museum to help, practically become the laughingstock of two continents worth of archaeologists in the process, and you just fall into it.”

Cecil crossed his arms over his stomach, averted his eyes, and pursed his lips. “Are you mad about that, Dad?”

His father glanced at him, confused, and then said quickly, “Oh, no! No, no, no! Cecil, if anything, I’m _jealous_ of you!” He tipped Cecil’s chin up with a knuckle. “Yes, I wanted to find it, but… _my_ son found the Mad Pharaoh Ahkmenrah’s tomb. I am so proud of you!”

Cecil beamed, and then he shoved his album aside to lunge at his father for a great big hug. His father wrapped his arms around him in return, squeezing him as tight as he could. Cecil squeezed, too, and they spent a few minutes trying to out-squeeze each other until Cecil’s father let go, stood up, and told him he needed to get to sleep.

“You’ve got school tomorrow, remember?”

“Awww… Do I really need to? I was fine not going in Egypt.”

“That was different. You were learning stuff in a more hands-on sort of way.”

“Then lemme keep doing that! That’s fun!”

“Cecil…”

“Dad!”

“Cecil, you gotta finish out the tenth grade, at least.” Cecil groaned loudly. “Though, really, you should probably think about high school—”

Cecil groaned even louder and flopped backwards onto his pillow.

“And college—”

“I don’t need that!” he yelled. “Besides you didn’t—”

“Times are changing, Ceec. Between all these new discoveries, new technology, and this money crisis… You need to try and get ahead in life. I’m lucky enough to get the funding I do, the commissions I get from the university. Though it’s gotten better since we got back, but… Cecil, I haven’t ever tried to hide the fact we’re struggling a little, and I do not want this sad existence to be all you ever have in the future.”

Cecil looked up. His father was looking at him with a deeply furrowed brow. He looked so much older than he was, so much more exhausted. When they’d left New York last year to go on the expedition, things had already been bad for a few years, but it seemed like they had only gotten worse in the meantime. In truth, things had improved a little, thanks to some natural recovery and some government programs, but the tragedy still oozed out from every dank, grimy alleyway in the city. Cecil sat up and stuck out a hand. His father looked at it, confused.

“Tenth grade,” Cecil said. “I’ll do til tenth grade, and I’ll think seriously about more. But if I stop at ten, you gotta stop bugging me. Deal?”

Cecil’s father sighed, relieved, and he clapped his son’s hand in his. They shook.

“Deal.”

He then took the opportunity to tug Cecil in for another bear hug, pinning the boy’s arms to his sides. And then he started attacking Cecil with kisses, Cecil laughing and trying to lean away from his father yelling, “Dad! Dad! I’m twelve, come on!” His father gave him one kiss on his forehead and then let him go. Cecil settled down under the covers. His father walked to the door of his room.

“Good night, Cecil,” he said.

“Night, Dad,” Cecil replied. He hesitated then added, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He started to head out, closing the door behind him, but then he remembered something. “Oh! Cecil.” He poked his head back in the room. Cecil looked up, waiting for what he had to say. His father sighed.

“I want you to have fun, learn as much as you can this year, and have a good time with your friends. But unless he’s made a dramatic change in the time we’ve been gone, please try to stay away from Gus this year, okay?”

* * *

“And just what the hell does your old man mean by that?”

Gus caught up with Cecil the very next day before the bell. Gus had actually grown an inch or two since the last time they saw each other, but that still made him the shortest person in their class for the third year in a row. To make up for it that first year, he’d acquired a pugilistic swagger. And he’d proved more than once it wasn’t just posturing. He greeted Cecil that day by putting him in a headlock, which with their height differences meant Cecil was practically thrown to the ground in the ambush. They moved over to the rusty jungle gym, where Gus hung himself upside-down by his knees, shadowboxing as Cecil told him a little about the expedition, mostly about what Egypt was like. But when Cecil mentioned what he and his father had talked about the night before, Gus just hung there, arms crossed, the blood rushing to his head, making it red, redder, purplish…

Cecil shrugged. “I dunno know, Gus,” he answered, a little more sarcastically then he meant to. “I guess it’s a mystery.”

Gus snorted and flipped himself down from the bars. He shook himself and stretched. Then he whipped around and flicked Cecil’s ear. Hard.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“I dunno, wisecracker, what was that tone for? Am I not good enough for you anymore, Mr. Egypt?”

“Geez…” Cecil rubbed his ear to make it stop stinging. “God… Fine, I’m sorry, Gus.”

Gus sat down next to him. He hunched over a bit, and then shrugged. “Same, I guess.”

That was probably the best he was going to get from Gus for awhile, so Cecil shrugged, too, and nodded in agreement. Suddenly, Gus let out the biggest, loudest sigh and slumped against Cecil. Cecil looked over at him, but Gus was staring off into the distance. Cecil brushed it off and went back to thinking when Gus loudly sighed again. Cecil looked over at him like he’d gone crazy. Gus just looked at him, wide-eyed and impatient. A lightbulb went off in Cecil’s head.

“So, Gus,” he said, “what were you up to while I was gone?”

Gus immediately broke into a smile. “Why thank you for asking because—” He sat up as straight as he could. “—I went five rounds with John L. Sullivan.”

Cecil opened his mouth to remind Gus that the boxer had been dead for twenty years, but stopped himself, rolled his eyes, and smiled as Gus hopped up and began reenacting the blow-by-blow of the supposed fight until the bell forced them both to go inside and settle down.

* * *

After school, they huddled in the back of a movie theater. Gus always liked going whenever he could. He said moving pictures made more sense than words. He was the same way about the funny papers, too.

“Words were the worst invention,” he once said, tossing down his pencil when he and Cecil were doing homework. “The. Worst.”

So, he let actors do all the work for him. Today, though, they were also covering up him and Cecil whispering in the back row, sharing a cheap (stale, cold) popcorn as Cecil went more in-depth about his trip.

“You just fell on top of the bastard? Just like that?”

“Well, not directly on top, but in this hallway with jackal guys on the sides.”

“Right in the middle of a sand-hurricane?”

Cecil may have been exaggerating. A bit. But Gus wasn’t there, he wouldn’t know. He nodded, smirking. Gus grinned so wide Cecil could see the kernels stuck in his teeth.

“Now, I managed to crush two of the booby traps—” Gus snorted and nearly choked. “—but there were still more that were live and waiting to kill me. But, my pop made sure to teach me about this stuff before we went, and I also got some tips from the people there.

“The first trap was a bunch of floor tiles, all arranged in a hieroglyphic pattern, and the carving on the wall next to it said, ‘If you think that you should tire, think again or you’ll be on fire.’ And that’s when I noticed the middle of each tile had a little spout in it and—”

“It shot fire at you?!”

“Shhh!” A few people glared at them. Cecil tried to play it off politely. Gus glared back.

Cecil continued, a bit quieter, “No, it didn’t, but that’s because I’m that good. If anyone else except for my pop had fallen in there, they would have been toasted. Me? I knew I had to spell out Ahkmenrah’s name by stepping on the tiles in order to get past it, and once I did I found the mechanism that made the fire and broke it.”

Gus nodded sagely, leaning back. “And then?”

“And then… And then I _thought_ I was all right, but then I stepped on this other tile, and all these arrows started shooting at me.”

“They really didn’t want anyone to see those dead bodies, did they?”

“Or the treasure! Gus, there was this—”

“Later, tell me about the arrows.”

“Huh? Oh! Oh yeah, um… So they were shooting at me, maybe seven hundred of them all at once, and I had to twist and turn and dodge them all. Which I did. Some of them got my clothes and ripped holes in them they came so close, but they never managed to hit me. None of them. Not even the flaming arrow that was the last one to come at me.”

Gus leaned in. Cecil leaned in, too, after looking around to see if anyone was spying on them. He said, “I caught it in mid-air.”

“No you didn’t!”

“ _Shhh!_ ” Gus nearly threw his popcorn at them, but Cecil grabbed his arm. He nodded once. Gus studied him for a few minutes, pursing his lips, gritting his teeth, and squinting his eyes at his friend. After awhile, though, he beamed, whispered, “I knew you had it in you somewhere!” and then gave him a friendly shove.

“That’s not even the best part!”

Gus almost couldn’t believe those words, but he shut up and let his friend continue.

“I reached the area with the sarcophaguses, their caskets. And on the wall was this beautiful, gold, shining tablet: the Tablet of Ahkmenrah.” Cecil shook with excitement. Gus was little less enthusiastic.

“That’s it?”

“I’m not done, shut up! So, I went up to see it because it’s just so… I mean you had to see it, Gus, it was so… so beautiful. Powerful. I reached out to touch it, but before I could, I heard this laugh. I looked behind me, and saw it. Saw _him_ , I should say. The ghost of Ahkmenrah.”

“Did you really?” Gus watched him carefully. Cecil had thought that might be going too far, but he figured he was on a roll, he might as well go for broke. But he still hesitated when he saw Gus’ expression. His face was screwed up in a scowl as usual, but his eyes looked like a hopeful street puppy when it saw someone eating meat. Cecil nearly caved and admitted to lying, but half a second later, was nodding solemnly.

“I really did. My dad didn’t believe me either when I told him, but there he was, all gnarled and hunched over, one eye practically bugging out of his head and blood dripping from under his bandages. He laughed at me, and I thought I was gonna die, but he just walked past me to the tablet and said, ‘This was my most prized possession in life, and even in death, I shall use its power.’ He looked right at me, _right at me_ , when he said that, and then he smiled and blood dribbled out of his mouth. And then he said, ‘If you remove the tablet, the end will come. _The. End._ ’ And then he laughed. Gus, he laughed, and it was one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.”

“Like a squeaky chalkboard?”

“ _Worse._ ”

Gus’ mouth was agape. Half-chewed popcorn threatened to spill out and splat right onto the floor.

“He laughed and then just disappeared. And then!” Gus had started to get angry again. “And then! My dad finally made it to me. He was so proud of me for finding the tomb, but like I said, didn’t believe me about seeing the ghost. Said not to worry and packed it all up.” Cecil sighed and drooped. “Even the Tablet…”

There was finally total silence between them. The sounds of the cartoon short the reel was playing sounded so far away, as did the laughter of the rest of the audience. The two boys sat there, thinking and munching on the cold popcorn until the cartoon stopped and a newsreel started.

“Do you think I could see the body?” Gus suddenly asked.

Cecil jumped a bit, but settled quickly and replied, “No, sorry. I wasn’t even allowed to see it. They just packed it all up and sent it to Cambridge.”

“Cambridge!” Gus whined. “Where even is that?”

“Britain.”

“BRITAIN?!”

Every single person in the theater turned around and either shouted at them or tossed empty popcorn cartons their way. Gus started to roll up his sleeves, but Cecil grabbed him by the arm and dragged him outside. It was getting late in the afternoon, so they headed towards their homes instead of stopping anywhere else. Most of the way, Gus grumbled about “damn Brits taking everything, the snooty nuts,” but halfway through, he got quiet. A few minutes later, he stopped and grabbed Cecil’s arm.

“‘The end will come.’ What do you think that means?” he asked.

“I figured it meant the end of the world.”

“You believe it?”

“I dunno. I mean, there was that whole curse thing with the Tutankhamen team. They all died really quickly.”

“But do you believe it?”

Cecil shrugged. Even if he had seen a ghost who told him those words, what were the chances some ancient tablet would actually be right? Besides, more recent people had predicted the end of the world lots of times, but everything was still here. Still….

“I dunno,” he finally said. He clapped his hand on Gus’ back. “But I guess we’ll find out soon.”

They started walking again. Gus kicked at a rock on the street.

“I can’t believe they sent it to Britain.”

“You’ll see it someday. It was part of the deal with the British Museum: they give my dad money for an expedition, and they get to keep half of it. The other half they get to study for a few years before letting us have it back.”

“But that’s just so stupid of them. You guys worked you’re asses off, and you ain’t even got nothing to show for it!”

“Can we move on from this?” Cecil sighed.

“But the Brits—”

“MOVING ON.”


End file.
